


One for the Road

by Enfilade



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Enabling, Jealousy, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 03:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enfilade/pseuds/Enfilade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the Great War, Trailbreaker and Roller are just two friends who like to help each other out.  Except maybe they're more than friends, and maybe what they do together isn't helpful...and will lead both of them to places they never wanted to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One for the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CavalierConvoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalierConvoy/gifts).



> Minor sexuality and major themes of addiction, enabling and substance abuse. This story is intended to present a vignette of Trailcutter and Roller's choices and thoughts, not to either glamorize the behaviour or demonize them as people. 
> 
> I hope I don't have to say "don't do this at home, kids" to get the point across. Frankly, I'd rather say "If this is you, then you're endangering your health, and there is a problem, and I am worried about you. Please do something about it. Don't just deny it, like these two do."
> 
> Implied Roller-becomes-Tarn.
> 
> For Cavalierconvoy as my apology for sucking her down into gay robot hell with me.
> 
> "There was once a G*** saying,  
> It may come from Catalan.  
> First the man, he takes the drink,  
> then the drink, it takes the man.  
> It may lead you to destruction  
> Or a love that's meant to be,  
> And beware the Barcelona girls  
> And the Spanish Burgundy."
> 
> \--Spanish Burgundy, Tom Russell Band

One for the Road

Orion Pax would not be happy if he found out what the two of them did at the picket rock, which is why neither Trailbreaker nor Roller had any intention of telling him.

Every recharge cycle, while the other members of the team were resting, one mech took his turn staying awake on top of the picket rock to monitor the long-range sensors and the area around the camp for any sign of intruders. The picket rock was the highest feature of natural terrain for kliks around, which meant that it provided the best view of the surrounding area. 

Right now, though, everyone was awake and nobody was on top of the picket rock. Instead, Trailbreaker and Roller sat side-by-side in the lee of the huge stone, feeling its heavy presence at their backs as they relaxed in its shadow. The big rock shielded them both from the optics of anyone back at camp. Which, Trailbreaker admitted, was the point.

Trailbreaker sipped from a bottle of engex—real engex, not that homebrewed stuff he’d been distilling in his hab. Primus, did it taste good. “Thanks,” Trailbreaker said gratefully, lifting the bottle in a toast, because thanks to Roller, another twenty-three similar bottles were sitting in a case right beside him, and it was a good day to be alive.

“Don’t mention it,” Roller grunted, not looking up from the task at hand. Trailcutter watched as Roller carefully poked a hole into the top of one of those little boxes of energy drink that he was always toting around. He took a sheet of tinfoil and rolled it into an impromptu funnel, which he set over top of the hole he’d made. Then he took a small tube out of his carrying compartment and popped open the lid. 

Carefully, Roller shook a few grains into the funnel. He lifted the tube, eyed the contents, shook in a bit more, and then capped it and returned it to his compartment. He tapped the foil a couple times to knock all the grains into the box before putting the tinfoil away as well. Placing his thumb over the hole in the top of the box, Roller shook his box of “Juice” vigorously. 

Of course, it wasn’t just Juice any more. It was Juice and…Trailcutter wasn’t sure what the little grains were, and felt like an idiot for having to ask. Some kind of performance enhancer, was all he knew.

He’d had a few sips of Roller’s drinks before, and they’d tasted good—great, even—and yeah, he’d felt pretty amazing afterwards, too. He’d felt bulletproof, like he could run all day and never get tired, like he could easily lift burdens he’d have struggled with before. But the next day he’d felt irritable and aggressive, mean even, and there was an unpleasant chewing sensation in his tank far worse than any engex hangover. It had made his T-cog itch and his plating crawl.

He hadn’t liked it, and truth be told, he didn’t really need to be strong or tough. All he needed to do was show up when somebody wanted a forcefield. And while sometimes Trailbreaker felt as though he’d be nothing without his talent, on the other hand, he also didn’t have to be particularly strong or fast or good at fighting because nobody else could replace him at the thing he did best. 

Roller, on the other hand, was one regular guy in a group of outliers and Orion Pax. Pax, while not an outlier himself, was still something pretty special. He was their leader, their mentor, their protector and their motivator. Roller, while a Point One Percenter—and therefore not exactly a regular guy by most mechs’ definitions—still felt inadequate next to the others. Trailbreaker knew the feeling.

So if Roller wanted to take a few performance enhancers to make sure he stayed the best there was at what he did—which was basically being the strongest, toughest mech in Orion Pax’s merry band of outliers—Trailbreaker had no objections to that.

And Roller seemed to have no objections to the fact that Trailbreaker liked to spend his off hours enjoying a couple of drinks. Nor did Roller ever have anything to say when Windcharger or Glitch or one of the others teased Trailbreaker about spending so much time flat on his back in recharge, or consuming more than his fair share of the energon cubes. Roller didn’t care that Trailbreaker had a frame that guzzled fuel and needed extra recharge. And Trailbreaker didn’t care that Roller wasn’t exactly an outlier. They had a mutual understanding.

So when Trailbreaker went into the city, he picked up a couple cartons of Juice and went to one of several storage units where Roller had arranged, somehow, for another one of those little tubes of granules to appear. Trailbreaker didn’t know the details, and didn’t care to. Roller was the kind of friend who brought cases of engex back when it was his turn to take a trip to civilization, and that was good enough for Trailbreaker.

Trailbreaker wasn’t on duty right now. He didn’t have a problem—he just liked a couple of drinks—and on his off-duty time it was a mech’s own business what he chose to do with himself. Roller was on duty, but of course the cocktail in his box would only _help_ him perform to standards if it turned out he saw something unusual on the monitors. It was becoming something of a pattern, lately, for them to spend Roller’s watch shifts together.

Trailbreaker downed the rest of his bottle in one long pull, opened another, and contentedly leaned his head against Roller’s shoulder. Just a couple of drinks and the company of a good friend, that’s all.

Roller shifted, and for a brief moment Trailbreaker wondered if he’d done something wrong. He was still pretty sober to be falling all over Roller, and yeah, come to think of it, he really was all up in the other mech’s personal space, wasn’t he? 

It wasn’t his fault Roller was so _warm_ or that his sturdy frame felt so _good_ next to Trailbreaker’s. Trailbreaker was no model of aerodynamic grace, but a mech as big and heavy as Roller made Trailbreaker feel like a speedster in comparison. He liked that feeling. It wasn’t his fault that Roller’s EM field felt so _appealing_.

It was, however, his fault that he’d presumed his welcome instead of asking. Trailbreaker struggled to sit back up straight. “Sor…” he started to say, and then a large arm closed around his shoulders and apology no longer became necessary.

They sat there a long time. How long, Trailbreaker was not certain. Later, he would count the time as five empty bottles of engex and two cartons of Juice. Their mouths were too occupied to bother with words, and not always with their drinks. Words were unnecessary. It was simply another layer to a mutual understanding.

Trailbreaker was not sure how far it would have gone if it weren’t for Skids showing up entirely too early to take over watch duty from Roller. Trailbreaker and Roller broke apart, hurriedly, pretending their haste was borne of embarrassment at being caught littering.

Trailbreaker had more bottles to clean up. He was still stooped over, fumbling for his containers—they were more than a little blurry at this point—while Roller and Skids chatted. Trailbreaker felt a sudden, unexpected resentment for the blue super learner.

Super learner. What kind of outlier power was _that_?

The kind that meant that if Skids had been born—or _rebuilt_ —with force field projectors, it would take him maybe a week or two to reach the skill level that Trailbreaker had spent his whole life trying to master.

But, of course, Skids _didn’t_ have force field projectors, so Trailbreaker had nothing to worry about except, say, the fact that while he was recharging, Roller was always hanging out with Skids. And Trailbreaker couldn’t just _make_ himself stay awake. His body didn’t work like that.

No, he needed lots of recharge, and sometimes he had to sleep off the occasional engex hangover, and when he did, Roller was hanging out with Skids. What did they do together, while Trailbreaker was sleeping? What he and Roller had just been doing behind the picket rock? More??

Trailbreaker glared up at Skids, shocked by the anger in his spark. Skids was innocently leaning against the rock, casually gesturing as he told Roller something that made the bigger mech laugh. Roller was doing nothing to tell Skids to get lost so he and Trailbreaker could resume their previous activities, either.

Trailbreaker suddenly felt awful for being so jealous of Skids, who’d done nothing wrong. Trailbreaker couldn’t blame Skids for wanting to be Roller’s friend. Nor could he blame Skids for not needing as much rest as he did, or for being born a super learner. It wasn’t Skids’ fault that Trailbreaker needed Roller more than Skids did. It wasn’t Skids’ fault that everyone seemed to like him, while Trailbreaker struggled to keep just one friend who understood him.

Life just wasn’t fair, and Trailbreaker needed a drink.

Trailbreaker took a sixth bottle out of the case, which was now a quarter empty. He popped the top and took a swig before tucking the rest of the case under his arm.

“Uh, should you be drinking that?” Skids asked with a frown, pointing towards the bottle in Trailbreaker’s hand.

Trailbreaker staggered a little—as anyone might have. There were a lot of loose rocks and scree around here, slipping and sliding under a mech’s feet. He caught his balance, drew himself up straight, and said casually, “Just one for the road.”

And as he walked away, weaving ever so slightly, feeling sick down to his spark, he sent up a prayer that Primus might deliver him from Roller’s other associates.


End file.
